Broken Bones (Undertale)

Purpose

None of you asked for it, but here it is anyway! This is the sequel to "Can't Afford Not To Care", so if you haven't read it yet, please do! If you wanna read this anyway...uh...sure? You won't understand much but okay.

I'm sorry if none of you like Undertale but I don't have anything else to write. If you have any requests, please let me know! Thank you.

--- Kura-chan ---

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It was quiet in Snowdin. Nobody had decided to visit the small village any more, as there wasn't anything to see. The tree, decorated with bright lights and hiding presents beneath its branches, was now flourishing piles and piles of snow. It was the prettiest thing in the barren town. 

If a monster were to venture out near where the entrance to the Ruins were, to place itself next to the cliff that a small mound of snow now called home, they would find a scrap of a red scarf, lazily drifting in the wind. If they were to look over the edge...they would find nothing.

No-one ever went there anyway. Who would? There's not really much to see in Snowdin.

And yet, somehow, a small child made their way through Waterfall. Their figure was bloody and bruised, and they bore scars on almost every inch of their body. But they limped their way through the quiet lands of Waterfall, their blood staining the bright, white snow on the ground as they entered Snowdin. 

They had a mission.

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Sans opened his eyes. He had expected death, not to be hanging off the edge of the cliff and staring the ground from a height he wished he wasn't at. But he was not the cause of his body hanging freely over the edge, it was Papyrus' scarf. When he looked up, he saw that it had somehow tangled itself on a branch that hung just above some sort of landing below him, one that would have saved his fall anyway. Was that branch always there?

Sans felt the branch breaking. His eyes widened as he realised he would fall head first and lose his one HP. If he wasn't going to die from at least a one hundred metre drop, it was going to be from a metre drop. Frowning, he decided that this wasn't how he wanted to go.

He made himself fall, shimmying his body closer and closer to the edge until the branch let out a loud crack, snapping in half. Sans landed clumsily on his feet, surprisingly having a clean fall. He dusted himself off from the snow that jumped up to meet him and began to look around.

As he observed his surroundings, Sans noticed a small cave to his right which dug directly into the wall of the mountain. He wondered how he had never noticed it before, but considering you had to be on this landing to find it, he quickly scrapped that thought.

As he contemplated his options, Sans figured out that he couldn't just jump down to the bottom of the cliff. He'd die. He didn't want that any more - he just wanted to fix things, to make everything right again. Even without the human power of determination.

Sans fixed Papyrus' scarf, tightening the red fabric around his body and shaking his head. If he was kept alive, it had to be for a reason. Even if he couldn't exactly figure out what that reason was, he decided he would find out. Sans wasn't one for believing in superstitions or fate, or even anything to do with destiny. But this was something he couldn't ignore. He was sure that Papyrus' scarf was tightly wrapped around his body when he fell, and he was so sure that he was going to die.

Apparently not.

Brushing his thoughts aside, Sans found that there was no indication of direction in this cave. Taking a few steps forward, he saw the old fashioned torches scattered around the place. The old gems monsters used to use. He sighed, working with what little light he had to navigate to whatever this place contained.

He assumed that this was a part of Waterfall, seeing that echo flowers were randomly dotted around the place. Usually, when walking past an echo flower, it would whisper what monsters have said before it. But when Sans wandered past, they were strangely silent. It was as if this ground was fresh and new, that nobody had come here before him. At least, that would be the case if he didn't hear the whisperings of an echo flower far away from him. 

Hoping that maybe there was some monster alive that he could talk to, Sans almost ran towards it. When he arrived, however, he was almost disappointed. The voice sounded old, as if it had recorded itself long before Sans had arrived. Sans listened intently to them.

"Please...just...l-leave...me alone...!"

It was raspy, as if crying out before taking its last breath. It sounded as if they were dying, but Sans wasn't exactly sure. They could just have a really hoarse throat. 

Sans wondered what this voice meant. But as he continued his journey down the path of seemingly endless echo flowers, the voice became frantic and sounded less like a regular hoarse voice.

"I didn't...didn't want to do...do it..."

What were they talking about?

"No...NO!"

By the time Sans reached the next echo flower, the voice was choking. Struggling to hold something back.

"Ngh..." They broke into a coughing fit. This was when Sans began to realise something. 

That coughing fit was recent. He had assumed the voice was from a long time ago, but it sounded as if these thoughts and cries were very recent. Now confused by his own sense of judgement, Sans immediately went to investigate. Someone was down here. He couldn't tell if it was a human or a monster, but he could tell that they were just barely hanging on to life. He had to be able to save someone.

Sans ran forward, the echo flowers fading away as he could hear the silent pleas of someone in the distance. It was very clear that they were not a monster, and they very much resembled the child he had killed before. Were they...not dead? Was it them?

Sans continued to run until he reached them. His sockets turned black with the shock. 

In front of him was a small human, beaten and bloody, just as he had left the other human back at the Judgement Hall. They were holding their head with one hand, the other being used to hide their tears. They were surrounded by a small field of golden flowers, and it seemed that they were unable to control their emotions. Sans immediately knew that this child was not the demon he had fought not too long ago. He couldn't find the words to speak. He couldn't even find it in himself to confront them.

"...Sans?"